Alumnae Profile

Tatiana Mazenko Androsov '68

Although she didn't celebrate Thanksgiving until she moved from Belgium to America when she was nine, Tatiana Mazenko Androsov '68 now heads a nonprofit organization that's all about the holiday—and the broader concept of gratitude behind it.

As president and executive director of Thanks-Giving Square in Dallas, Tatiana oversees a multitude of local, national, and international programs at the interfaith chapel, park, and research center dedicated to revitalizing the ancient concept of thanksgiving.

As head of Dallas' Thanks-Giving Square, Tatiana Mazenko Androsov '68 encourages an attitude of gratitude among the world's people.

Since its creation in 1961 by businessmen who wanted to enshrine a value amid skyscrapers, the center has attracted people to celebrate what Tatiana calls “our only all-encompassing holiday.” As the first holiday most immigrants celebrate in America, “it's a unifying factor in this nation of nations,” she explains. “Thanksgiving ties each new immigrant to all previous immigrants,” as well as to Native Americans and their traditions of thankfulness.

Thanks-Giving Square undertakes local, national, and international programs all year long. The center has always been on the cutting edge locally, Tatiana says, encouraging interracial dialogue in the 1960s and integrating Islamic traditions since the 1970s, for example. And its guiding body still serves as a resource that's “looked to by the whole city in challenging times,” Tatiana says.

Naturally, work is most intense for her as the November holiday approaches each year. Calling herself, jokingly, “Mother Turkey,” Tatiana will oversee an extensive program of cultural and spiritual events during the third annual Week of Thanks-Giving that will draw more than 2,000 visitors to the heart of Dallas.

The center is a player on the national and international scenes too, involved in everything from writing the draft for the White House's annual proclamation of Thanksgiving Day to working with the United Nations on an international year of thanksgiving. As a “place of synergy,” Thanks-Giving Square brings together leaders from many countries. Tatiana's dream is to create “a place where everybody can connect with others in gratitude and go back with visions of hope rather than visions of fear.”

For more information, visit www.thanksgiving.org

Photo credit: Mei-Chun Jau/Dallas Morning News

If I believe in a certain practice or an ideology, then I want to live that and try to be a model, both for myself and for other people. Living what I believe in is one of the most powerful leadership tools. — Kyra Z. Norsigian ’04